


Into The Woods

by Cynic_al



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynic_al/pseuds/Cynic_al
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years Post-Fall John's moved on with his life, but his new hobby as a crime blogger has opened some old wounds and got the attention of some very unsavory characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning's Hush

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first work here at AO3, I've got some stuff up on FF.net under the name Cynicalb if you're interested. I've not done much in Sherlock but this one's been spinning out for me for a while so I thought I'd test the waters. 
> 
> Later  
> Cynic.

John sat on Sherlock’s grave leaning back against the headstone, he took a long pull from a bottle concealed in a paper bag, and leaned his head back to look at the sky. 

“Mary’s dead,” he said, after a minute, “they said it was a car accident, drunk driver ran her off the road and kept going. I looked at the scene it was murder. The other car stopped at the edge of the embankment, idled for a good couple of minutes, probably making sure that no one got out. Emergency vehicles obscured the tracks, of course, but there was a puddle of transmission fluid, fresh and big enough to say they stopped a while, but not so big as to suggest a breakdown earlier in the day. They say she died on impact, I know better, I saw the coroner’s report, saw the wreck. She bled out from a cut to her neck, probably a tree branch that came through the windscreen, it would have been quick at least. So, that’s my week,” he grimaced and took another swig of the bottle, then poured a little on the ground beside him.  
“It’s been three years, I thought I was over it, maybe it was wishful thinking. I don’t know, I was looking for you I guess, I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing,” he shrugged. 

“I started writing a crime blog, and collecting these stories about impossible crimes solved and unsolved all over Europe. I offered my opinion, a thinly veiled attempt to continue your work without actually taking up crime scene hopping again. Mary thought it was a harmless hobby, a way of connecting with my old life, with you. I thought so too, until it all started making sense, little things like that thing with the financier in Belgium, I mean really the whole thing was solved because he was wearing the wrong cufflinks? You really need to keep a lower profile,” John snorted to himself, and took another swig.  
“You’ve still got fans you know, online, I met a few kids, well hackers really, they found me posting anonymously to a few forums, they believe in you Sherlock, never lost faith. They offered to help me clear your name, I told them I had technically and posted the buried news articles retracting all the Richard Brook stuff and exonerating you and Lestrade. I don’t think I’ve really forgiven Mycroft for putting this all in motion, I mean yes you’re you, you were never going to walk away from someone like that, but you weren’t even on Moriarty’s radar until Mycroft put you there. I don’t suppose he thought it would go this far, but… I’m rambling again and rehashing old ground, I know you’ve heard it before, but it has been a while since I’ve been…” he sighed and shook his head. 

“So, these articles started piling up and I realized it was you, but I couldn’t tell anyone. You’re dead,” he patted the headstone behind him. John sat quietly, sipping his bottle for a while. 

“It still feels like you’re dead, I watched you fall, I felt for your pulse. You’re dead, where I should have been years ago, slumped over a dune somewhere, but I survived because of you and you died because of me, and now Mary has paid the same price. I saw, but I didn’t observe before it was too late. They were watching me; they must have known the moment I figured it out or they figured it out because I did too. But they miscalculated, I drove the car to work, but Mary’s father was having one of his moods and she needed to go and clear things up with the nursing home, she borrowed my car at lunch, I stayed on the couch in my office, they got her on the way back from the nursing home. I don’t know maybe they thought, we’d gone together, very sloppy.” John shook his head, and leaned back on the headstone. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me Sherlock, because if you told me you’d rigged the headstone with a mike and transmitter or recorder, I wouldn’t be surprised, I just don’t know what to do. You’re both dead, or good-as Mary is on a slab in the morgue, and you, you’re either six feet below me, or somewhere I can’t contact you. When they realize they missed, and if they haven’t already I’ve misjudged them, and you, because if it takes them a week to know only Mary was in that car then, you wouldn’t have had to fake your death in such a spectacular fashion, so that means they’ll try again, and they might not be so subtle, but you know what?” 

John sat up suddenly turning to face the headstone, “You know what? I identified my wife today, and they told me she was six weeks pregnant, my child, Sherlock, they killed my baby, over something neither of them knew anything about, and I can’t prove,” he dropped the empty bottle on the floor, and stood up, “So they’ll try again, and make sure this time, and as much as I want to take out those bastards that ran Mary off the road, that killed my wife and my child. I have to tell you, I am exhausted, I am so sick and tired of dealing with all this cloak and dagger crap, I’m tired of sucking it up and being the good solider. 

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore Sherlock, and if you’re not dead, and by some way, you hear this then I hope it was worth it, whatever made you leave, I hope you got what you wanted out of it. And I promise that when you visit my grave, I’ll have the decency to be in it, that way you’ll always know for sure where I am.” John wiped the tears that were welling from his eyes, sniffed twice turned and left. The micro-camera embedded in the ‘O’ of ‘Sherlock’ snapped a few more pictures as he walked away, a silent witness unable to call a warning when the van pulled up and the men dragged John away.


	2. An Undisclosed Location

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John finds himself in an undisclosed location.

John stood in the street; he looked up as a shot rang out above him. He ducked for cover looking for both shooter and target. He saw it; a massive bird, a raven, falling out of the sky its wings straight up billowing in the air as it dropped like a stone. John crouched low in case of another shot, but kept watching the bird drop in slow motion. 

Then there was blood. There was blood everywhere, on John’s hands and he was pushing on the wounded soldier trying to stop the bleeding. John looked up at himself trying to put pressure on his wound, on his stomach, but that wasn’t right, he was shot in the shoulder, then the raven was there, it was massive all black wings swooping around the room, it was a warehouse, and John struggled to stand because a bird like that shouldn’t be trapped inside. 

His side was on fire, and the bird seemed to be pushing him down stopping him from helping, and then he was alone, and there were corpses everywhere draped over chairs, leaning on overturned tables, he was soaked sitting in a puddle of blood and oil, black as the raven, but full of colors. John blinked his eyes were getting blurry and he realized that there were tears now, and a bright light shining above him like the sun.

****  
John woke up when the sunlight burned through his eyelids. He didn’t open his eyes for while; if the light was bright enough to hurt before he was awake then it might blind him once he got a good look at it. He looked at the back of his eyelids and used his other senses to figure out where he was. He was in a bed, not his own, and it wasn’t in the city, there wasn’t the smell of the city, but it wasn’t the country either, he could hear faint traffic noise far away, so the suburbs maybe. He could smell vanilla air freshener, and clove cigarettes, in the room and Downy fabric softener in the sheets he was covered with. There was also the unmistakable sense that he was not alone in the room.

He tried to remember how he’d gotten, wherever he was, but the past was a little blurry for him, he remembered going to the cemetery, visiting with Sherlock, and leaving. He was going to hail a cab, two men appeared out of somewhere, and grabbed his arms, he remembered trying to elbow them, but it was too late a sharp prick in his neck and his whole body went limp, there was the vague sensation of being carried, and nothing until he awoke here, wherever that might be. 

“I know you’re awake.”

John turned his head to the voice and opened his eyes, squinting in the bright sun coming in through the windows, the speaker stood in the glare and it took a few seconds for the image to clear itself.

“Mycroft,” said John, turning his head back to look up at the ceiling, “where am I?”

“An undisclosed location,” said Mycroft, he moved forward and sat in a chair by the bed. John let out a huff of amusement and shook his head.

“Okay then,” he said, “Why am I here?”

Mycroft frowned and brushed imaginary lint off his trousers, and all John could think was he could see right up his nose from his position on the bed.

John decided he wouldn’t have this conversation with Mycroft’s nose hair, so he pushed himself up on his fore arms, and tried to shove his pillow back against the headboard. Pain lanced up his left side and he groaned, and put his hand on his stomach, he felt a dressing there.  
“What the hell?” he cried as Mycroft helped him to lean back on a pile of pillows.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” asked Mycroft once John had been settled.

“I got jumped outside the cemetery, what happened to me?” asked John rubbing his side now very aware that he had stiches under that dressing.

“We don’t have the details,” said Mycroft suddenly finding his fingernails very interesting, “My surveillance team saw you abducted, but couldn’t get to you in time to prevent it. They have been dealt with I assure you. The van was recovered but you were not.”

“Then how did I get here?” asked John.

“You called me,” said Mycroft, “we sent a team to your location, and found you unconscious with a rudimentary dressing on your stab wound.”

“I was stabbed?” John frowned, trying to push his mind to remember, but there was nothing there.

“And drugged,” said Mycroft.

“With what?” John asked.

“We don’t know,” said Mycroft, “there were track marks on your arms and one in your neck, but your blood work came back clear, whatever it was left your system.”

“I remember getting stuck in the neck when they took me, but the rest…”he shook his head, “I don’t know, did you catch them?”

“They’re dead, John,” said Mycroft, “you were found, covered in blood, not all your own, and the three men seen taking you were found dead all around you.”

John looked down at this hands, he had healing bruises on his wrists and knuckles.  
“How long have I been gone?” he asked, Mycroft’s façade slipped a little further and he frowned, “How long since the cemetery?”

“Two weeks,” said Mycroft, “you were held for five days, you had emergency surgery for the stab wound, there was a nick in your small intestine, you developed an infection, your fever broke yesterday after 6 days. You’re very lucky.” Mycroft grimaced at his own platitude.

“Yeah,” said John, “lucky me.” He let his full weight sink into the pillows at his back. “Do you know who they were?” he asked after a while.

“Local hires,” said Mycroft, “nothing that connects right now.”  
“Connects to what?” asked John.

“We’re tracking several possibilities,” said Mycroft vaguely.

“Which are?” asked John blinking suddenly exhausted. The door across the room opened and the woman he knew as Andrea opened it.

“Your car’s here sir,” she said without even glancing at John, “and the minister is on the phone.” John wanted to ask which minister, but he was fading fast.  
Mycroft stood up and adjusted his suit.  
“Rest,” he said to John, “we’ll talk more when you’re up to it.”  
“But…” said John, but he couldn’t finish the sentence he was already being pulled under.


	3. After Midnight All Bets Are Off

The next time Mycroft visited John had been able to get out of bed for a few days and was sitting in the back garden on the patio drinking painfully weak tea, and ignoring a plate of terrible expensive biscuits.

“How are you feeling John?” Mycroft asked sitting down at the table across from him and pouring a cup of tea. He eyed the biscuits wistfully, but didn’t take any.

“Better,” said John.

“Your nurse said you weren’t sleeping well,” said Mycroft taking a cautious sip of tea.

“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” John shrugged, he cast he gaze over the idyllic garden, pink and yellow English roses lined the path, and brambles grew on all sides, it was very Mycroft perfect and harmless on first glance, but closer inspection showed all the thorns ready to prick you.

“Have you remembered anything?”

“Fragments,” John shook his head, and frowned, “how many bodies were there in the warehouse?”

“Just the three men that abducted you,” said Mycroft.

“Four men,” said John, “four men abducted me,” it was Mycroft’s turn to frown now.

“You’re positive?” he asked.

“One man on each arm, another with a hypodermic, and a fourth driving,” said John.

“How do you know one of the other men didn’t jump into the driver’s seat when they subdued you?” asked Mycroft.  
John winced at that phrase, but covered by taking another sip of tea.

“The van pulled up while I was still fighting them, unless it drove itself, there were four,” said John certainly.  
Mycroft nodded, and stood up to leave.

“Are you going to tell me who they were?” asked John.

“They were hired thugs, John, their identities were of no consequence,” said Mycroft.

“Are we ever going to talk about Sherlock? About Mary?” asked John.  
Mycroft sucked his teeth and looked down at the table.

“They’re dead, John, there’s nothing else to discuss,” he met John’s gaze with a cold look that dared him to contradict, but John didn’t have the energy for that fight yet. Mycroft nodded and left without another word.

*****  
The raven was falling again, but this time John was stood in the middle of the street watching, the noise it made as it fell screeched in his ears. He tried to cover them but his arms were being held he looked around him and all he saw were bodies, dead men with glassy white eyes holding his arms, stopping him from moving.

***********

John woke up to find the lamp on his bedside table still burning, his heart was beating out of his chest, and he’d broken out in a sweat. He pushed the covers off and sat on the edge of the bed leaning his face on his hands. A glance at the bedside clock informed him it was just after 2am and only an hour since he’d given in to his exhaustion and gone to bed.

The dream images floated around him, teasing him without coming into full focus. Then he heard it a noise in the next room, the floorboard creaked badly and John had learned to listen for the sound when he was bedridden and his nurse would check on him periodically.

“Who’s there?” John called to the darkness in the open doorway.  
Mycroft stepped into the dim light of the lamp, and he was almost disappointed.

“Were you expecting someone else?” asked Mycroft.

“It’s 2 o’clock in the morning Mycroft what are you doing here?” asked John rubbing the stubble on his chin and screwing up his eyes. Despite the hour Mycroft still looked crisp in his suit.

“I have news,” said Mycroft, “but I was hesitant to wake you since you haven’t been sleeping.”  
John scowled, and crossed his arms over his chest, “I’m in no mood to be patronized Mycroft.”

“I’m sorry John, perhaps this can wait until morning,” Mycroft grimaced

“Just tell me,” said John.

“Shortly after your abduction your house was broken into and ransacked,” said Mycroft, “We were able to secure the premises, but there was a second break-in this morning they started a fire in the living room, there’s not much left I’m afraid.”

John was too tired to be surprised, so he just sighed and slumped in the bed.

“What did they get?” he asked.

“We’re not positive, but it looks like they took your laptop and any hardcopy files you were keeping.”

“I’ve got insurance,” said John standing up, “can you get me a new laptop?”

Mycroft frowned as John pulled on his dressing gown and walked passed him out of the room. He looked like he wanted to comment on this, but John turned back suddenly, “No,” he said, “if we’re going to talk about the destruction of all my worldly possessions in the house I lived in with my late wife and unborn child at 2 o’clock in the morning, then I need a cup of tea.”

The tea was a bit English, and John knew that others in this situation might opt for something a little stronger, but he was teetering on the edge and he was afraid anything more than tea might knock him off.

The kettle was nearly to boiling when Mycroft entered the kitchen; John stood over it, and poured the water in the teapot when it was ready.

“What was on the laptop John?” asked Mycroft.

“Nothing,” said John pulling cups out of the pine finished cupboards. The entire house had been decorated to be someone’s idea of the traditional English country cottage, complete with scrubbed wooden counter tops and leaded glass windows. Mycroft sat at the aged oak leaf table, and waited. “It was a gift for Mary for the first day of term, the only thing I put on there was a word processor and I changed the screen saver to pictures of kittens and dogs hugging. She liked that kind of thing.”

“Where is your laptop John?” asked Mycroft.

“There’s nothing on it you don’t already know,” said John sitting across from him.  
They sat silently listening to the hall clock tick, and the sounds of darkness outside. After a while John stood up, poured the tea and set the two cups on the table. “Why are you here?” he asked, “You didn’t come here to tell me that my house burned down. You could have had Helga do it in the morning.” John said referring to his live-in and much-loathed nurse.

Mycroft took a sip of tea and looked blandly at John, looking for all the world like they could be sat at a café in Paris, or at dinner in London, not at the kitchen table of a suburban cottage, in the middle of god knew where at three o’clock in the morning.

“You were right,” he said finally, “there was a fourth man involved in your abduction, he was not found at the warehouse. Have you remembered anything else?”

“Nothing concrete, fighting in the warehouse, bodies and someone standing over me, I didn’t see a face,” John shook his head to clear the images from his mind, he looked at Mycroft, “as much as I appreciate the validation, that wasn’t the only reason you came was it?”

“We identified the man for whom your abductors were working,” said Mycroft, “have you ever heard of a man called Sebastian Moran?”

“Ex-military sniper, assassin, card shark, Moriarty’s Lieutenant,” John shook his head and took a sip of tea, “never heard of him.”

Mycroft’s mouth twitched.

“After spending so much time with my brother, it’s easy to underestimate you, John,” he said.

“That’s kind of the point,” said John, “Sherlock was the smart one,”

“Sherlock thought nearly everyone was an idiot,” said Mycroft.

“He was the only one that didn’t underestimate me,” said John.


	4. We'll always have...

The next morning, John might have been forgiven for thinking the encounter was a dream, except for the delivery of a brand new laptop early in the afternoon.

John spent the next day online catching up on the last few weeks of news, and gossip. He carefully didn’t access his email or recover any of his data from the various online locations it was stored in. He didn’t put it passed Mycroft to have put some kind of key logger or Trojan virus on the computer to track everything he did. 

*****  
John stood in the shower face to the spray with eyes closed and for the first time since he’d awoken allowed himself to truly relax. He was healing and despite the loss of the remains of his former life, John felt hope for the first time in months. It wasn’t hope like he was looking forward to a great future like a vacation, or a new car, it was the hope that very soon everything he’d been working towards would pay off.

Mycroft had confirmed it for him; Moran was the new head of Moriarty’s network. Months of research, years of wondering, and waiting for Sherlock. John smiled and sighed under the warm water, one way or another it would all be over soon.

********  
A week later Mycroft gave John another visit. When he came in from the garden, Mycroft was standing it the living room leaning on his umbrella.

“Cup of tea?” asked John not showing he was the least surprised.

“I can’t stay,” said Mycroft.  
John turned away from him and started to get things ready for tea.

“Get on with it,” said John.

“We don’t have any additional information I just wanted to see how you were,” said Mycroft.

“You mean you want to see if I remember anything else about the warehouse,” said John setting the kettle to boil.

“Have you?” asked Mycroft.

“No,” said John, “Was there anything else?”

“I think that will be all,” said Mycroft, “I’ll be in touch.” He started for the door.

“There was one thing,” said John, Mycroft paused. “You said at the warehouse, I called you and you traced the call.”

“That’s right,” said Mycroft.

“That’s not possible,” said John.

“You suffered a trauma it’s not surprising you don’t remember.”

“No,” said John, “That’s not it,”

“John, don’t do this,” said Mycroft looking pained.

“What did I say?” asked John, “when I called what did I say?”

“You said help me,” said Mycroft, “twice, the phone was on the floor beside you when the team came.”

“How did you know it was me?” asked John.

“We didn’t, but that number is highly classified anyone with access was a person of interest we traced the call and raided the warehouse.”

“But that’s just it isn’t it!” said John, “I don’t have your number, I never had it.”

“But surely,” said Mycroft his brow creased.

“You think Sherlock would have the forethought to give me your number?” asked John, “Your number’s always blocked when you call or text me and even if I could redial or 1471 I haven’t seen my mobile since I was in the graveyard. Was that the one you found with me?”

“No,” said Mycroft frowning now, “it was a disposable phone we connected with one of the other men.”

“The three dead men who were the ones who kidnapped me,” said John, “what about the fourth man the driver?”

“We can’t further substantiate his existence,” said Mycroft, “the other three men’s prints were all over the warehouse. If the fourth man was there he wore gloves at all times.”

“You think that’s unlikely,” said John.

“I don’t doubt your memory of the abduction, I’m merely stating the facts in evidence. It is possible that the driver was never in the warehouse, that he simply dropped you off with the other three and went somewhere else.”

“Where else would he go?” asked John.

“Moran’s network, formally Moriarty’s network is extensive, we’ve managed to identify several key players and are in the process of identifying the final cells that will allow us to take the organization down,” said Mycroft.

“It’s been years since Moriarty died, Moran’s good but he’s not that good, why has it taken you so long to do this?” asked John.

“There have been other priorities to take care of, but we’re focused on Moran at this time,” said Mycroft.

“Well, he is a world class sniper,” said John, looking out the window, “maybe you can trace the bullet when he comes gunning for me again.”

“I can assure you John, you are in no danger here,” said Mycroft, “you have the highest level of protection possible…oh,” he pulled a phone out of his pocket and checked the screen, “I really must be going,” he said and pocketed the phone, “since you mentioned it I brought you a new mobile, if you need anything speed dial M.”

“I want to go home,” said John, “I’m through hiding out here.”

“You house is uninhabitable,” said Mycroft, “and you’re safer here.”

“I’m not arguing with you about this I want to go back to London, if I can’t go back to my house I’ll go back to Baker Street. I know you’ve kept it vacant. I expect you can make the arrangements.”

Mycroft pursed his lips, and said, “I’ll be in touch.” He walked himself out, John waited until he heard the door close before he relaxed. He looked around the room, and saw a small box on the side table, it contained a very nice mobile phone it was the newer model of the one Harry had given him all those years ago when he’d first come home. It seemed so long ago now, a lifetime. 

******  
Two days later, he woke to an empty house and a packet on the kitchen table containing train tickets and a fake ID, John shook his head when he saw the tickets for the Eurostar. This idyllic English country house was on the outskirts of Paris.


	5. Chapter 5

John rang the bell at Baker street he still had a key, but it had been almost three years since he’d called it home.   
Mrs. Hudson opened the door, turned deathly white and leaped into his arms.

“John, oh my god! John!” she started crying into his shoulder.

John held her, and her tears and warmth grounded him in a way he hadn’t felt since before Mary’s death. They stood there in the hallway until Mrs. Hudson had cried herself out. 

“I’ve got you all wet,” she said pulling out of his arms and wiping her face on her hands.

“It’s the best thing that’s happened in a month and a half,” said John sincerely smiling despite the moisture in his own eyes.

“Oh, you,” said Mrs. Hudson, pursing her lips, she sniffed and pulled herself together, “I’ll put the kettle on, and you’ll tell me what has been going on and where you have been.” She towed him into the kitchen and soon had him set up with a cup of tea, some biscuits and a piece of lemon cake.

**  
“Paris,” she said frowning, after he’d explained everything.  
“Yes, I needed to get away for a while, after what happened to Mary, and then the house, I just couldn’t face it all,” he hid his grimace behind his tea mug, “but then I got mugged and after I got out of the hospital I just wanted to come home.”

“Oh you poor man,” said Mrs. Hudson, “you go away to try and put the past behind you and you end up getting more stuff heaped on. Well the flat is vacant; Sherlock must have worked it into his will or something. I got five years worth of rent off his brother and he refused to take no for an answer.”

John smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. 

***  
Sherlock sat in front of the laptop, intent on watching the screen, watching John walk away from his grave. He stopped the image and rewound to the beginning, to when the motion sensor on the camera activated. John wandered into shot bottle in hand and plunked himself down leaning back on the headstone, and also unwittingly covering the lens. Sherlock didn’t care, because it’s what John had to say that mattered. 

So he listened not for the first time, to John’s slow almost emotionless account of the death of his wife and unborn child, of how it was the knowledge that Sherlock was probably alive that got them killed and how John no longer cared if they tried again. When John sat up to face the headstone, his face was a mask of utter despair as he told of the pregnancy he clearly didn’t know about.

Sherlock felt…bad, he couldn’t really think of any other way to put it. Normally the only consequences he thought about were to himself, but his actions had caused John pain, he knew this from the other times he'd been to the graveyard, but this time it was different, John’s faith in him had caused the death of his family, and perhaps, worse to Sherlock’s mind, had caused the death of his friend’s spirit. The John Watson Sherlock remembered would be out for blood, not resignedly waiting for his turn to be murdered. 

Despite this Sherlock was proud of how hard John had fought his kidnappers. All three of his attackers had come away with some very painful injuries from the initial abduction and sustained further injuries during the fight at the warehouse. It had given hope to Sherlock that his friend wasn’t so far buried in his guilt and grief that he had truly given up. He closed the laptop and steepled his fingers together in thought. 

“Oi! Put the porn away Johnson!” Sherlock scowled at the heckle, but put his laptop in his bag and went out to meet with Stevens. “You’re getting your dearest wish,” he told Sherlock, “we’re going back to London.”

*******  
Sherlock pulled his collar up to shield his ears from the wind; Stevens got out of the driver’s side door and nodded to the house across the street.   
“We’re over there,” he said. They pulled bags from the trunk and locked the car.  
The house was a vacant terrace newly remodeled in the middle of the block. “They had a gas explosion a couple of years ago,” said Stevens, “they had to gut the whole thing, and put a new front on it. Looks pretty good, right? Lots nicer than the warehouse.”  
They set up their equipment in the upstairs front bedroom.  
“Why are we still on this guy?” asked Sherlock, “Clearly after the warehouse we know he’s highly connected.” Stevens dumped another bag of stuff in the middle of the room.  
“Boss wants eyes on this guy, that’s all I know that’s all I need to know,” he said, “We’re not to engage though just observe.” Sherlock nodded and pulled out a tripod; he set it up in the window and mounted a scope on to it. He checked the alignment and watched as John Watson made tea in the kitchen and brought it out to the living room of the house opposite.

*****  
John was settling into Baker St. again, if he were honest the house in Dorchester was never truly his home. He loved Mary, but she would never be a replacement for the life he had lost that day at St. Bart’s. Idly John wondered what kind of life he could have now, as a marked man he couldn’t strike up any kind of relationship without endangering that person. He didn’t like to think about that though, the fact that because Mary had married him she was dead. He mourned for her, for their unrealized child, and the life that might have been, but John was a pragmatist he accepted that his life was coming to a new chapter. What he didn’t know was whether this chapter would be the last.


End file.
